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Samsung's A15 Chromebook Loaded With Ubuntu Is Crazy Fast

Phoronix: Samsung's A15 Chromebook Loaded With Ubuntu Is Crazy Fast

Google recently launched the Samsung Chromebook that for $249 USD features an 11-inch display, a 16GB SSD, a promise of 6.5-hour battery life, and is backed by a Samsung Exynos 5 SoC. The Samsung Exynos 5 packs a 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor with ARM Mali-T604 graphics. With using this new ARM Cortex-A15 chip plus the Samsung Chromebook not being locked down so it can be loaded up with a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or openSUSE, it was a must-buy for carrying out some interesting Cortex-A15 Linux benchmarks. The Exynos 5 Dual in this affordable laptop packs an impressive performance punch.

One question only...

Can this thing play 720p or 1080p smoothly over HDMI with Ubuntu/other distro of choice?

If so, I am probably going to get one of these things now that I know it can have a real OS installed and not hacked on. My single core atom netbook is showing its age and I've been avoiding the locked down Chromebooks.

Very interesting benchmarks so far - look forward to seeing more, and more varied ones too.

It would be interesting to see comparisons to a Bobcat core - an E-450 or similar, as well as a similar power consumption C-60.

This Exynos 5250 is a 32nm product, but they are planning a 28nm variant fairly soon as well. That could be quad-core, and/or faster at 2GHz, and/or even better octo-core Mali T658 graphics - let's call it the Exynos 5450. That will be one sweet SoC.

If we now get a free as in freedom GPU driver for it... wow! That would be awesome.
That thing plus enough battery runtime, a good keyboard (75% vendors fail at this), enough USB and maybe one or the other legacy port and 100% free drivers for it. Would be a dream. And considering the price it looks like a good offer.